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Yesterday, my wife baked a cake. Unfortunately, it was a disastrous fail. Instead of fluffy and juicy it turned out to be a compact and painfully chewy mass (not to say mess). It is so compact that the raisins lying around started orbiting it.

Now we were discussing on how to utilize it. Flushing it down the toilet is no option, since it is still food and we are worried about the damage it might cause to the pipes. The organic waste bin might be a way to dispose of it, however, I'd feel sorry about throwing out all the valuable ingredients. It basically consists of semolina, yogurt, quark, sugar, eggs, carrots and milk.

Do you have any suggestion on what to do with it, eventually how to reuse it culinarily (chopping it is still possible, I got the right tools)?

EDIT: Thank you everyone for your ideas. Dehydrating worked quite well. I added some of it into my crunchy Muesli mixture and I'm keeping some of it for the ice cream thing. Since it was quite a bit, farmer friends of ours were pleased to get the rest of it as chicken food. We got some fresh eggs in turn for baking a new cake.

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    You could do some sort of "bread pudding" or a triffle.
    – Max
    Mar 25, 2015 at 13:31
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    mix into ice cream...dry in low oven or dehydrator and use as "breadcrumbs"...use as struesel topping on another cake....??
    – moscafj
    Mar 25, 2015 at 13:44
  • @mocasif make THAT an answer, it is what I would do :). Also: topping for fruity quark. Perhaps, once dried and crumbled, as a base for cake-pop-like things?
    – Layna
    Mar 25, 2015 at 13:51
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    Doesn't everything have quark in it? 1800 parts (by mass) quark to 1 part of my favorite lepton: electrons.
    – Nick T
    Mar 25, 2015 at 15:34
  • dry it out and use it as a cheesecake crust instead of graham crackers
    – coburne
    Mar 25, 2015 at 16:46

7 Answers 7

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...mix into ice cream...dry in low oven or dehydrator and use as "breadcrumbs"...use as struesel topping on another cake....??

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    That is indeed some good suggestion. I will give it a try
    – symphonic
    Mar 25, 2015 at 16:03
  • Keep us posted how it went. Most of the time chopping it up to ice cream nuggets helps a lot but sometimes there's just no saving the garbage.
    – Mast
    Mar 25, 2015 at 20:56
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In Denmark (and in other countries around the world), we have this wonderful thing called rum balls. It's basically old cake leftovers mixed with cocoa and, depending on the recipe, something sticky, such as jam. In Denmark, they're usually rolled in sprinkles, shredded coconut or just more cocoa powder if you like a chocolaty taste. They can include rum or rum essence, but don't have to.

I have yet to find a type of cake this doesn't work with. Danish bakers make them from whatever they have laying around at the end of the day, often including danishes and more margerine as the sticky part, and sell them cheaply the next day to students and others.

Rumkugeln, CC-BY-SA-2.0-DE by Sebastian Zurkuhl, from [Wikipedia][3]

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  • "I have yet to find a type of cake this doesn't work with..." Sounds promising. I'll try this one out as well
    – symphonic
    Mar 26, 2015 at 7:04
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Slice it and fry it. Then, in the pan, add some sugared milk and let it absorb the milk like in French toasts.

Or just fried, add some maple sirup or custard?

EDIT : @rumtscho is saying that the French toast is a bad option, maybe crumble?

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    I would not try it in this case. It's excellent advice for stale cake or bread. But reading the ingredients list and the description, we are talking about something entirely different, basically a pap with no cohesion or leavening. Even if it can be cut without falling apart, it won't benefit from being made into French toast.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Mar 25, 2015 at 14:45
  • Should they crumbling it then?
    – Yohann V.
    Mar 25, 2015 at 14:53
  • I can't say what they should do, because personally, I'd toss it, as there is nothing which can make that stuff actually tasty. But there are some ideas which can reduce the problems, and crumbling could be one of them. French toast frying certainly isn't, it will bring no improvement.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Mar 25, 2015 at 15:09
  • @rumtscho tossing it would be a pity, since, despity the terrible consistency, it does not taste bad at all.
    – symphonic
    Mar 25, 2015 at 16:06
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I know you already have an answer you picked and many more good ideas, I would like to add one more to this long list of good ideas. What I do is slice up the cake in pieces about a half inch thick or so, and whether it is a round, square or rectangle cake. I slice the pieces about 2 inches by 3 inches. Then I put them on a cookie sheet on 300 degrees F and cook them until they are nice and dry, it takes about 30 minutes. I would check in 15 minutes to turn over and see how hard they are and even taste them. Put your timer on so you do not forget and you may want to start it at 250 degrees F. Take them out when dried and crispy and let they cool on cookie sheet. Then you can put some powdered sugar or cocoa or not. Believe me when I tell you they disappear so fast on a plate in the kitchen you wonder if you ever made it at all. Good Luck

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  • Sounds interesting, I have some mass left to try this as well
    – symphonic
    Mar 26, 2015 at 7:03
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    Another idea is when you have leftover bread, from pita, flat, french, toast, etc., you either slice it in pieces 2-3 inches long or whatever size you want, leftover french breach sliced less than 1/2 inch thick, pita in triangles. Then you lightly drizzle olive or grapeseed oil on the bread that's on the cookie sheet. The fun part is to use your favorite dry spices, garlic, cumin, parsley, rosemary, anything you like, or 1 spice like garlic, put into a 300* F oven for 15 minutes, turn over and see how they are doing and maybe lower to 250* F. These are great as chips and great for dipping.
    – user33210
    Mar 26, 2015 at 8:44
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Slice thin, bake til hard, use as teething biscuits or, if not too hard, cookie type things. I'm going try this with my gingerbread disaster.

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  • You are essential repeating this answer. Please do not repeat answers
    – user34961
    Sep 14, 2017 at 8:36
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    @JanDoggen : perhaps, but with a 1 reputation, she can't comment to add mention of teething biscuits to that answer. People can only comment on their own questions when under 50 reputation. Lydia, thank you for contributing; as this site is an offshoot from ones for programmers & system administrators, we have some people on here who can be a bit ... brusque.
    – Joe
    Sep 14, 2017 at 10:21
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I made a nice pudding, by cutting the cake up into small pieces, drying out in a low oven (100 degrees C) for some time, then adding some sliced apple, a sprinkling of cane sugar, and a few knobs of butter. Bake at 175 C. for about an hour. Serve with cream or ice cream.

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Have you considered cake pops?

Crumble the cake tto crumb stage, probably best done in a food processor.

Mix with a stiff frosting type binder. I would use a buttercream which would get firm in the fridge.

Incorporate eh crumbs into the frosting. Roll into balls. Roll eh balls in a covering such as sprinkles.

Place on a paper cupcake liner.

Chill.

If you have sticks, stick them in; if not, just eat like the rum ball described above.

Or, use the Momofuko MilkBar recipe for Fruit Loop Meringues using your crumbs instead of crushed Fruit Loop. Here is the link.

http://milkbarstore.com/main/press/recipes-and-how-tos/#Froot%20Loops

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